WASHINGTON — After months of almost single-minded focus on healthcare, President Obama is about to shift the White House spotlight to global warming -- first with a speech to the United Nations in New York on Tuesday, then later in the week at the G-20 economic conference in Pittsburgh.
The renewed emphasis on climate change and reducing carbon dioxide emissions comes at a crucial time: Negotiators are entering the home stretch in a drive to unveil a comprehensive international agreement to curb rising temperatures at a December conference in Copenhagen.
With key divisions remaining among the major industrialized nations, as well as with developing industrial powers and poorer nations, there is concern that negotiations leading up to Copenhagen could be bogging down. Obama administration officials, while admitting the seriousness of the challenges, hold out hope for a deal.
Here are nine hurdles facing Obama and his counterparts:
Healthcare: If the U.S. hopes to lead the way to a climate deal, leaders at home and abroad agree, it must complete congressional action on legislation that shows it's serious about reducing its own greenhouse gas emissions, which scientists blame for global warming. The House passed climate legislation in June, but the issue is stalled in the Senate while Congress debates the healthcare overhaul.
If the Senate fails to pass a climate bill before Copenhagen, "it would open the United States to the charge that it does not take its international commitments seriously, and that these commitments will always take second place to domestic politics," Ambassador John Bruton, head of the European Commission Delegation to the United States, warned last week.
Cost: For any climate bill to pass, key moderate Democrats and crossover Republicans will need to be convinced it won't lead to higher energy prices.
Republicans cite estimates that emission limits could cost a typical family thousands of dollars a year in higher energy costs and lost economic opportunity. Democrats cite other studies, including a Congressional Budget Office report last week that estimates the "average per-household loss in purchasing power would be $90 in 2012 and $925 in 2050," an average of about $455 a year from 2012 to 2050.
Farmers, coal and oil: The House bill passed only after some representatives won financial breaks for coal-fired power plants, oil refineries, agriculture and other industries. Those interests hold potentially greater sway among key moderate Democrats -- and possibly some Republicans.
